New Book Release: Ghostly Encounters

Ghostly Encounters: Terrifyingly True Hauntings by Richard Estep

Your spine tingles and the hair rises on your neck. You look around and at first you see — nothing? But then you notice … !!!! Step into the world where the line between the living and the dead is paper-thin in this bone-chilling collection of ghost stories!

From cursed houses where restless spirits whisper in the dark to shadowy apparitions lurking in the corners of forgotten places, Ghostly Encounters: Terrifyingly True Hauntings delves into eerie and unexplained tales that still baffle, intrigue, and terrify us to this day. Encounter malevolent poltergeists who wreak havoc on unsuspecting families, ghostly figures bound by tragic pasts, and haunted locations steeped in mystery and fear. Explore legends of cursed objects, spectral warnings, and the unrelenting presence of those who refuse to leave the mortal world behind.

Master storyteller and seasoned paranormal investigator Richard Estep presents more than 200 years of hauntings in this fright-filled read that spans the nerve-wracking realms of the spirit world. You will …

• Visit the lonely farmhouse where an animal spirit haunted an innocent family
• Walk the battlefield of Gettysburg where echoes of the Civil War battle still resonate today
• Go behind the walls of Waverly Hills Sanatorium, the tuberculosis facility in Kentucky where thousands lost their lives to an insidious disease — some of whom still walk its empty hallways
• Journey to Tombstone, Arizona, home of the famous 1881 O.K. Corral gunfight, where ghosts apparently still roam the entire town
• Tour the Borley Rectory, which was said to be the most haunted house in England
• Investigate “The Enfield Poltergeist” and “The Black Monk of Pontefract” (featured in the movies The Conjuring 2 and When the Lights Went Out, respectively)
• Meet the Bell Witch, the malicious poltergeist that tormented a family in 19th-century Tennessee
• Venture behind the walls of haunted prisons, hotels, inns, hospitals, mansions, and more
• And meet a whole host of other supernatural manifestations, haunting this bone-chilling collection of true ghost stories!
  
  
  Unsettling and enthralling, Ghostly Encounters will linger in your thoughts long after you’ve turned the last page! Can you face the darkness, or will the darkness find you first?

New Book Release: In Balanchine's Steps

In Balanchine's Steps: How the George Balanchine Foundation Preserves His Genius by Costas et al.

Learning to dance the steps of choreographer George Balanchine requires both a measure of magic and hard work. Saving those steps for a new generation of dancers is the work of the George Balanchine Foundation. This new book tells the story of the Foundation's effort to preserve the remarkable dances created by Balanchine so that they can be shared and enjoyed into the future.

New Book Release: Latino Firsts

Latino Firsts: Trailblazers and Milestones in United States History by Nicolas Kanellos

Salute the Latino legends, pioneers, and trailblazers! Celebrate the Hispanic milestones, accomplishments, and victories!

An inspiring exploration of 1,250 groundbreaking individuals and pioneering events, Latino Firsts: Trailblazers and Milestones in United States History honors the an indelible mark Hispanics have made on American history and society. Featured are brigadier general Richard E. Cavazos, Nobel laureate Gabriela Mistral, actress America Ferrera, playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda, civil rights activist Dolores Huerta, Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Francisco Ayala, artist Jen-Michel Basquiat, weightlifter Sarah Elizabeth Robles, and many, many more notable people and accomplishments, such as …

• The first Latinos—three Mexican American lawyers—to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court: Gustavo C. García, Carlos Cadena, and John J. Herrera prevailed in Hernandez v. Texas to have juries in the state of Texas desegregated in 1954
  
• The first Latina to represent the United States in the Olympics in archery: Jennifer Muciño-Fernández in 2020
  
• The first Hispanic American to be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his years of work on behalf of civil rights for Latinos: President Ronald Reagan honored Hector Pérez García in 1984
  
• The first Latino to be named executive director and president of the Academy of American Poets: Puerto Rican Ricardo Alberto Maldonado in 2023
  
• The United States’ first recorded Latino labor organizing activity: Juan Gómez organized cowboys in the panhandle of Texas in 1883, leading several hundred cowboys on strike against ranch owners
  
• The first Latino to hold the rank of brigadier general of the U.S. Marine Corps: Angela Salinas in 2006
  
• The first Hispanic to be inducted into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame: Opera soprano Martina Arroyo in 2020
  
• The first Puerto Rican and first U.S. Latino to win the Academy Award for Best Actor: José Ferrer in 1950 for Cyrano de Bergerac
  
• The first Latina to serve as a CEO of a Fortune 500 company: Cuban American Geisha Williams became the CEO the Pacific Gas and Electric Company in 2017
  
• The first Latina to serve as a bishop of the United Methodist Church: Minerva G. Carcaño in 2004
  
• The first Latino known to have graduated from an Ivy League school: David Camden DeLeón graduated in 1836 from the University of Pennsylvania
  
• The first Latina dancer to star on Broadway: Puerto Rican Chita Rivera was the principal dancer in 1952’s Guys and Dolls
  
• The first Hispanic spy for the United States: Captain Román Antonio Baca in 1862
  
• The first Latino to be named chief scientist for NASA: France Anne-Dominic Córdova in 1993
  
• The first Latino to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism: Peruvian American journalist Carlos Lozada in 2019
  
• And thousands of other milestones and firsts!
  
  
  Milestones, victories and success are not always noticed when they happen. Sometimes an achievement is only recognized years later. Revel and rejoice in the renowned and lesser-known, barrier-breaking trailblazers in all fields—arts, entertainment, business, civil rights, education, government, invention, journalism, religion, science, sports, music, and more. Latino Firsts illuminates the rich and important history of Hispanic Americans!

New Book Release: Dark Spirits

Dark Spirits: Monsters, Demons and Devils by Richard Estep

Take a dark descent into a world of supernatural evil! Explore true horrors of sinister spirits, ominous ghosts, angry souls, menacing monsters, malicious demons, and cursed creatures in this collection of the malevolent paranormal!

Sometimes the monsters are monsters — swimming the murky waters of Loch Ness, stalking their victims the streets of small town America, or hunting innocents across the desolate British moors. At other times, the darkness lies within the human soul itself — the falsely accused who were executed for witchcraft in Salem, those hounded to their graves (and beyond) by cruel pursuers, or those cursed by all forms of vile spirits. Then there are the devils and demons lurking in the darkness, capable of possessing and tormenting the living.

Master storyteller and seasoned paranormal investigator Richard Estep presents sinister hordes of evil in Dark Spirits: Monsters, Demons, and Devils. This fright-filled read spans the darkest realms of the paranormal, including …

• Shapeshifters such as the menacing Skinwalkers of native mythology and ravenous, slavering werewolves
• Dreaded ghosts and ominous hauntings, including John Wayne Gacy’s ghost, the Amityville haunting, and the Villisca Axe Murder House
• Dark and evil curses, from the curse of Superman and Steven Spielberg’s Poltergeist to the tomb of Egypt’s pharaoh Tutankhamun
• Deadly demons and devils, like Dozmary Pool’s deal with the devil; Ronald Hunkeler, the Exorcist Boy; and the inhabitants of the Ammons demon house
• Vampires and vampirism from Vlad the Impaler to Elizabeth Bathory, killer of hundreds, to the Highgate Vampire
• Horrific accusations and deadly consequences that ripped through society from the Salem witch trials to the supernatural hysteria caused by the rapid spread of tuberculosis to the 1980s Satanic panic
• Otherworldly encounters like the Black Eyed Children that appear out of nowhere, the Roswell Crash, unexplained animal mutilations, and abducted human beings
• Cursed places, including the Bermuda Triangle, London’s haunted Underground, and Los Angeles’ notorious Hotel Cecil
• And dozens more stories of dark and depraved paranormal beings and encounters.
  
  
  Walk into the abyss of the whispered and veiled legends, the myths and first-person encounters in Dark Spirits. Learn about these frightening experiences and how they scarred lives forever. Explore the dark supernatural world around you—if you dare!

New Book Release: Jewish Law: New Perspectives

Jewish Law: New Perspectives by Suzanne Last Stone and Yonatan Y. Brafman, eds.

New Perspectives on Jewish Law combines the detailed work characteristic of scholarship on Jewish law with an orientation towards its broader academic and cultural significance. It shifts the study of Jewish law from its focus on legal doctrine and history to legal theory, achieving in the process a more sophisticated understanding of law that will benefit both the legal academy and Jewish studies. By employing the framework of legal theory, it similarly corrects an over-emphasis on the metaphysical presuppositions and philosophical implications of Jewish law, which has tended to cast it as exceptional relative to other legal systems. Moreover, it answers to old-new anxieties about law, often symbolized by Judaism, raised by contemporary feminists and by philosophers who are animated by recent interpretations of Paul through actual engagement with the Jewish legal tradition.

The volume consists of three parts. The first focuses on the critique of positivism, its implications, and the new directions that it opens up for the analysis of Jewish law. The second part takes stock of recent methodological developments in the study of Jewish legal texts and investigates the relation between Jewish law and the disciplines, including history, literary theory, ritual studies, the digital humanities, as well as traditional approaches to Jewish learning. It concludes with a reflection on these interdisciplinary contributions from the perspective of legal theory. The third part explores the connections among Jewish law, philosophy, and culture critique. It assesses the relation or lack thereof between Jewish law and modern Jewish thought, and examines specific issues of philosophical interest, including truth and normativity. It also investigates the image of Jewish law in the contemporary critique of law as well as how Jewish law could productively contribute to that debate. It concludes with a reflection on these studies from the perspective of philosophy of law.

New Book Release: Know Your Soul

Know Your Soul: Journeying with the Enneagram by Joseph Howell

Joseph Howell suffered from excruciating grief over his son's illness and death in 2008. A clinical psychologist and spiritual teacher, Howell's pain forced him to search his spirituality. An immersion into the ancient wisdom of the Enneagram revealed a pearl of vastly more profound knowledge than personality types. It was an Enneagram of nine soul types and their particular soul qualities. This discovery of the Enneagram of soul beautifully reconnected Howell to aspects of his soul that he was unaware existed. These soul qualities helped heal his overwhelming grief when little else could. This transformative experience led to this groundbreaking work. Years in preparation, this book is unique among those on spirituality and the Enneagram. Besides presenting Enneagram teachings, Howell tells intimate personal stories of how to recognize our soul type's unique qualities, and how the dominant ego becomes transforms into a servant of our soul. During the writing of this book, Howell and his wife, Lark, lost their only other child, Lauren. The Enneagram of soul is a map of truth that sustains their faith and their commitment to this work, even in this second great loss. People searching for deeper meaning and those who have experienced significant grief of any kind will want to read this book. Beginners and advanced students of the Enneagram will also benefit from it because it takes them from Enneagram basics to finer concepts of soul work.

New Book Release: From Scroll to Soul

From Scroll to Soul: Delving Into the Essence of the Week's Torah Portion for Actionable Insight by Steven Tzvi Gleiberman

Throughout history, only one text transends time and place, guiding us from the superficial to the depths of our existence: the Torah.

From Scroll to Soul is a two-year collection of writings that explore the spiritual essence of each week’s Torah portion, accompanying us on a mission of discovery to unearth the connections between the wisdom of the Torah and direction in our day-to-day lives.

As we turn its pages, we are invited to traverse the sacred messages of the Torah—those ancient scrolls that cradle the secrets of our existence. We unearth the insights that lie just beneath the surface and let us connect the ancient with the contemporary, drawing relevance from the timeless encounters within the Torah that actively speak to our lives today.

From Scroll to Soul is a personal invitation to unveil the layers that shroud the Torah's spiritual essence, reminding us that our own souls are connected and reflected within its holy pages.